Northern Ontario living, 2027.

• Author: Robinson, David
• Position: Economically Speaking

You probably think that you are taking climate change seriously. Have you thought about how it will affect your life in Northern Ontario over the next 10 years?

You will be doing OK economically in 2027. The Canadian economy will do well. The national debt will keep falling as a share of GDP. Some of your neighbours will already have electric cars, and there will be a lot of new electronic toys. There will be new treatments for obesity, diabetes and several kinds of cancer.

Energy-saving tech will be cheaper. Dinner-table conversations will be spent on discussing whether Chinese solar panels are better than the Korean ones, and whether Tesla's home battery is a better deal than Toshiba's. Home Hardware will be selling a device to capture heat from shower water as it goes down the drain. Canadian Tire will have heat-capture ventilators for the bathroom. You may have bought automated insulated curtains. You will pay a deposit on all plastic bottles, tin cans and bags.

People working to attract immigrants to the North will get a big surprise. There will be a small flood of well-off Americans fleeing Florida, Texas and the Carolinas. They will want to bring their guns. Torontonians pushed out by the flood of climate refugees and sky-high housing prices will flood north. Northern young people will be staying in the North for the cheap housing and good weather.

It won't all be peaches and cream. You and the kids will be sad about the extinctions--TV will be tracking the last polar bears, and whales. Greenpeace will be trying to stop fishing for the last tuna. You won't be taking trips to Florida--by 2027 air travel will be seen as a kind of climate crime by many of your friends. You won't be barbecuing as much either. Beef has a carbon footprint 11 times bigger than tofu turkey. It is going to get a lot more expensive, and your kids will think you are an irresponsible slimeball if you insist on eating a lot of meat. You will probably get to like tofu turkey. You may even try vat-grown chicken.

Your gas-powered vehicles will have zero trade-in value. The forest industry in the northwest will suffer low productivity and big fires. Smokey days will be common.

Your life will change in dozens of ways, but a lot of...